Cryptonite
by Gryngolet
Summary: Missing Scene from Episode 1.7. Deacon isn't pleased with Juliette's rudeness to Rayna, and decides to do something about it. Contains non-sexual spanking of an adult.


Missing scene from episode 1.7

Juliette Barnes stomped into her rented house, slamming the door behind her. She was seething. That stuck-up, washed-up, over-the-hill, born-with-a-silver-guitar-pick-in-her-mouth _bitch_ Rayna Jaymes had the nerve to tell her, Edgehill's best-selling artist of the year, that she hadn't earned her place at the Ryman. She could fill a 50,000 seat stadium by herself, when Rayna's tour had been cancelled and she'd had to resort to a small club tour with Deacon Clayborne. Thinking of Deacon pissed her off more. His rejection still stung. To be fair, he hadn't actually rejected her - they'd had a couple of fun nights, and he'd been there for her, helped her get Jolene into rehab. But somehow he'd let it be known without actually saying so that he didn't want to keep on sleeping with her. She knew that though he liked her, his feelings for her came nowhere near how he'd felt and still felt for Rayna. Another thing that bitch valued so little, just took for granted as hers to pick up when and if she wanted, when Juliette would have given her right arm for the love and loyalty of a man like Deacon.

The duet was off. There was no way she was getting up on a stage and lending her star power to that has-been. Marshall and the label could go fuck themselves for all she cared. Her fans would forgive her, had already forgiven her for her little shoplifting indiscretion, and the rest of the world eventually forget. She paced around her cold white –and-chrome living room, anger and frustration surging through her. She needed a release. She thought of going to the market to indulge in her teenage vice of petty theft, thought of calling Sean Butler for a romp in the hay, thought of trying to channel the anger into a song. She couldn't do the first for obvious reasons, she was too famous and had been caught once, and that would be career suicide.

Sean was a sweetie, she really liked him, and she knew she could overcome his scruples about casual sex given a long enough time and a short enough skirt. But she was maturing, growing up enough to know that forcing that battle, though she was sure she could win it, would damage the relationship irreparably. Better to let things progress there at the pace that Sean was comfortable with. At least until she decided whether or not she wanted to continue things with him. It felt weird, uncomfortable, like the wholesome high-school relationship she'd never had as the fatherless, trailer-trash daughter of the town pump in Flyspeck, Alabama. Sean seemed to like her for herself, outside of her celebrity. His fame was arguably bigger than hers, but he was completely down to earth and wholesome. He reminded of her of the star quaterback of her highschool, Tim Trainor, on whom Juliette had had an unrequited crush. He'd gone to the prom with, of course, the homecoming queen, Lila Getty, a strawberry blonde who was her town's closest thing to to royalty and who looked a bit like Rayna Jaymes. Juliette had stayed home, unable to afford either a ticket or a dress. She loved Sean's goodness, but sometimes it made her feel like screaming, like acting as loathsome as her loathsome mother so she could make him run away from her. Because if he was going to run away from her, she wanted to be in charge of why.

And that was entirely too much introspection. No stealing and no sex meant writing. Juliette picked up her guitar, strummed a few chords, and began fiddling with a lyric about not letting the losers drag you down, just hitching a ride out of town. She found a minor key melody that fit the lyric, and worked on the verse, but the magic was eluding her. She needed someone to bounce things off of , someone who'd bounce things back. She flashed, unexpectedly, on Rayna Jaymes, but that wasn't going to happen. If Rayna wanted to write with her, Rayna could damn well call her. No way was she, Juliette, going to make the first move after what had happened. Then she thought again of Deacon Clayborne. She knew "Undermine" was by far the best song she'd ever written, and she'd written it with him. She picked up the phone.

Deacon's head was aching. This thing with Coleman was threatening to derail his campaign for mayor, and Deacon knew he should go public with the fact that he had given the councilman the pills. Coleman had forbidden Deacon to do that, but Deacon knew that his own career, such as it was, could withstand the bad press, especially since he hadn't actually used the Oxycontin. It would be poetic justice, in a way. He'd gotten away with a lot of crap he should have been busted for when he really was getting high. Now he'd be taking the hit for drugs he'd resisted, pills he'd taken from an addict only to keep her from using them. There was no way in hell he'd tell the cops or the press that he'd gotten the illegal Oxy from Juliette Barnes's speed freak mother.

If that weren't enough, there was this clusterfuck of a duet he'd somehow gotten in the middle of between two of his former lovers, Rayna Jaymes and Juliette Barnes. He'd enjoyed meeting with Rayna's new producer Liam McGuinnis, and he hoped they'd get to play together on the duet, if it ever happened. But the women had gotten along like two cats in a barrel. He liked them both, but last night he'd been tempted to tell them they could kill each other for all of him. Rayna'd been so dismissive of Juliette, she wouldn't listen long enough to see that the kid had talent, the potential for talent as great as Rayna's, if she could keep from self-destructing ling enough to let it develop. Rayna couldn't seem to remember back to when she was young and insecure and touchy about her talent, and curb her tongue.

For Juliette's part, she was a rude little brat. Rayna was a veteran who deserved respect, and Juliette couldn't stand to give it. She knew that Rayna came from privilege, and her mind that meant that she'd had everything handed to her. Juliette had no idea the ups and downs that Rayna had been through. Deacon knew, because he'd been through many of them with her, and could have told Juliette stories that would make her hair curl.

Deacon wasn't stupid, he knew Juliette's jealousy of his past relationship with Rayna was part of the problem. Not to mention his current, complicated feelings for the woman. He was old enough to be Juliette's father, which was part of why they hadn't worked. He regretted sleeping with her, though they'd both enjoyed it. It had been a complication his life didn't need. He'd let the relationship fade away, but he still felt a sense of obligation to her. She was an adult, he knew that, and certainly quite sexually experienced, but he'd slept with her knowing from the start that he couldn't give her what she wanted from him. She was all raw nerves and insecurity under a very thin veneer of toughness. Under it all there was a kernel of deep talent and sweetness, but she didn't let the sweetness show too often.

He knew Juliette had thought that she could somehow absorb Rayna's reputation by fucking Rayna's ex-boyfriend and writing partner. If that had been all he wouldn't have felt the vague sense of guilt he still felt about sleeping with her. That wasn't all of it, though. He'd sometimes seen in Juliette's eyes when she was with him, heard an edge to her voice, a way that she'd say something rude and then tilt her eyes up at him, that made him realize that there were some Daddy issues there. Her father had not been present in her life; Deacon had spoken long enough to Jolene to know that the woman wasn't even sure which of her many partners had fathered her child. Jolene had had problems with addiction for a long time, and even in her teens she'd been trading sex for drugs and money. Juliette had been born when Jolene was only 17. The kid had had a neglectful, too-young addict for a mother and no father. If she'd gone looking for a father-figure, it wasn't any wonder.

_Think of the devil and she would call_, he thought, glancing at the display on his iPhone. Call from Juliette Barnes. He sighed, debated internally for two rings, then answered. Maybe he could salvage the duet by talking to Juliette. God knew his parting words to Rayna, when he'd shoved the disc containing "Undermine" at her, had been less than conciliatory.

"Hello Jules."

"Hey stranger. I'm sitting here all alone in my house writing, but the song's just not coming out right. We sure did make some beautiful music together. You want to come over and write with me?"

"I'd like to talk to you at least," he said. "But I think we should keep things professional for the time being."

"What's more professional than two songwriters writing a song? You worried about your virtue around little old me?"

He didn't take the bait. "I'll be there in half an hour."

"That long?"

"Gotta work my nerve up."

She snorted and hung up, and he tucked his phone away, grinning. Juliette Barnes was a handful and a brat, but he liked her, and liked hanging out with her. And writing with her reminded him in some ways of the old days, writing with Rayna, without the drugs and emotional entanglement that had messed things up then. . Just the talent and freshness of his partner, and the way she looked at him like he'd hung the moon.

Two hours later, he'd stopped smiling. Jules had a bee in her bonnet, and she was determined to get under his skin. Every other comment she made was a backhanded insult to Rayna or a jab at him because of his refusal to sign on with her tour and his withdrawal from her bed. It was as if she was trying to make him leave. But the song they were writing, Down the Road, had the potential to be as good as anything he'd ever written. He'd made as if to leave after the second bitchy remark, but the desperate unhappiness in her eyes had stopped him, and he'd simply warned her to dial it back. To his surprise, she had, and they'd done some good work for the next hour. Now that they were almost done, simply polishing out some bumps in the bridge, and she'd stepped up the verbal assaults again.

"And I never wanted to walk back down that road" he sang with her, his mellow baritone harmonizing with her twangy soprano as they tweaked the bridge.

Jules sneered at him. "Ain't nothing you'd like better than to go back down that road."

He stopped playing. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You know what it means. Rayna James. God, I cannot believe how you let that woman walk all over you. She doesn't deserve you, and yet she crooks her little finger and there you go, panting after her."

"Juliette." He put a world of warning into that one word..

"And now I gotta duet with her. No way. You heard how she talked to me."

"Yeah. I did. And I heard how you talked to her. Damn clear to me it ain't a thing either of you want to do, but it's still something you both gotta do."

"Why? Tell me that. I made one stupid mistake. All of a sudden I'm no longer Juliette Barnes? Why does one mistake count more than every record I've sold and every show I've played?"

He put down the guitar and scooted closer to her on the couch, closing the distance between them. "The duet ain't a punishment, Jules. It's the goddamn Ryman, and you'll be singing with country music's queen. It'll be good for you and good for her too. You know that."

Sulky silence, then a mutter he couldn't hear.

"What?"

Low, so low he could barely make out the words, she said "Maybe I need to be punished."

He didn't pretend not to know what she meant. Just looked at her, steady and accepting, and let her continue.

"Deacon, I don't know what got into me. Momma was here and all of a sudden it was like I was 15 again. You know I didn't need that nail polish, could've bought every nail polish in the damn store without batting an eyelash. But in my head it was like stealing that stupid little thing was the only thing that could make me feel better. Not even having the thing. Just stealing it."

"Getting away with something. Acting out."

"Yeah."

"Your momma ever punish you for acting out?"

She made a wry face. "Jolene was never sober enough for anything like that. She could barely keep herself together most of the time. _I_ took care of _her_, best I could. Mostly she didn't take any notice of me, or when she remembered she had a kid she'd cry and slobber all over me apologizing. The apologies were for her screaming at me and hitting me when she was high or wanted to be. Not - " she slanted him a look "not _spanking_ me or anything. She'd slap me if she was jonesing for drugs and thought I looked at her funny, or she'd punch me. Damn near broke my nose once, 'til I learned to recognize the signs and make myself scarce when she got into those moods."

"Baby, I am so sorry you had to go through that. There wasn't no other family around to help you?"

She made another of those twisted, rueful smiles. "My Grammy died when I was four. I had a couple uncles my momma didn't let me see much; I got the impression they were bigger losers than she was, if that's possible. I used to dream of my daddy coming to rescue me. He'd come back, say it had all been a mistake and he'd take me away from that trailer and off to a house. With a yard, and a fence, and a dog. I think – I think part of me thought that by stealing stuff I could get his attention. You know, like I'd get caught and he'd have to come back. I knew he'd punish me, like the other kids got punished when they were bad, but that would mean he cared about me. I just couldn't believe he was nowhere around, I thought he must be watching out for me somehow. Stupid, huh?"

"It ain't stupid to want someone to care about you. I care about you, Juliette."

"I know you do, sweetie. I'm just talking. Come on, lets get this bitch finished."

"We got some more talking to do first, little girl."

"What?" she asked nervously, obviously not sure whether they were playing or still being serious. Well, he wasn't sure himself. Her need was real, though, and she'd all but asked him to do this. What happened next would depend on how genuinely she'd meant it.

He stood, rolling the sleeves of his chambray shirt up, and walked over to her dining room table. He pulled one of the armless, straight-backed chairs out and placed it in the center of the floor. He sat down on it. "Come here, Juliette"

She was blushing fiercely now, a confusion of embarrassment, need, and desire on her pretty face. She walked slowly over and stood in front of him. She let a little smile play over her lips, trying to regain the upper hand, and reached down to grope his crotch. She mock pouted at what she didn't find there. "Funny, it don't _seem _like you wanna play."

Deacon grabbed her wrist and put her hand away from him. He kept hold of her, his grip just harder than would be comfortable for her. He made his expression serious and stern. "I ain't playing. You said yourself you need to be punished. I'm gonna spank you. "

Her laugh was high and false. "Deac, you can't be serious. I'm 23 years old."

He knew that she wanted to be talked out of her objections. "I'm serious as a heart attack. Jules, you're an amazing young lady, but you need to be taken in hand. That stunt with the nail polish was idiotic and wrong. The way you run your mouth to and about folks like Rayna and _me_," he said, now starting to feel angry again, "is both disrespectful and plumb stupid!" He jerked the wrist he held and she fell over his lap with a breathless squeak.

"If she was just a hair meaner than she naturally is, she'd ruin your chances of ever having a lasting career in this town. And you damn well know that in country music, this town is the whole industry. And yet you antagonize her for no other reason than her daddy has money and I used to sleep with her!"

"Well, at least she has a daddy!" Juliette yelled, feeling, absurdly, tears prickling at her eyes. He hadn't even hit her yet.

"Lamar ain't the kind of father you want, trust me on that."

"I wanted any kind."

Deacon tamped down on the sympathy that pathetic statement elicited. Sympathy wasn't what she needed from him right now. He raised his right hand, holding her in place across his lap with his left, and began to swat the seat of her jeans. He smacked rhythmically and hard, moving to cover both round cheeks. She was silent but for some sharp intakes of breath, but she began to squirm slightly after the fifth swat.

Deacon wasn't sure what was next. He'd played spanking games during sex, and had enjoyed both giving and receiving, but he knew that this wasn't like that. He thought back to his childhood, the few times his father had beaten him for various transgressions. Dad had never been satisfied with just the spanking; he had to lecture and scold his son during the punishment until Deacon had admitted his wrongdoing and was truly sorry for it.

He continued spanking her, ramping up the force a bit. "Now, I want you to tell me why you're here."

"This is my house, genius!"

Deacon rewarded that bit of smart-assery with a volley of 15 hard, rapid smacks, aiming one after another at the tender crease where her bottom me her thighs.

"Ow! Ow! Stop it!" There was definite distress in her voice now, and she'd begun to struggle to get away from his punishing hand.

"That wasn't what I meant and you know it," he said, pausing and resting his hand momentarily on her rear end. "Why are you here, over my knees, getting your bottom smacked like a naughty little girl?"

"I'm here because I stole that nail polish!"

"That's a start," he said, resuming the spanking at the moderate force he had initially set. "You know better than to steal, and you know better than to risk your career and the livelihood of all the people who depend on you by doing something so pointless and stupid, especially in public. You didn't think, you just reacted, and you can't be doing that any longer."

"No, I know." This was a bit muffled; she'd covered her face with her hands.

"You did it because your Momma got under your skin, and I understand that. I can help you deal with it if you start feeling that way again. I ain't been in AA for 15 years without learning some techniques to deal with bad feelings. We'll talk about it."

"Okay."

"Now, why else are you here?"

There was silence from her. Deacon sighed. The rudeness was the crux of the matter as far as he was concerned. He stopped spanking her. "Stand up."

Juliette felt a bit let down when Deacon told her to get up. Her behind hurt, quite a lot, and though she was glad the punishment was at an end, she felt that she was getting away with something that she shouldn't have been able to get away with. There had been something both thrilling and comforting about Deacon's stern, inexorable voice demanding she explain why she was getting this spanking. Her face was hot and flushed from being turned over his knees, and her eyes were wet, but she'd been able to keep herself from really crying, and she felt obscurely like she'd been cheated out of the climax of the movie, or the punch line of the joke, something.

She got shakily to her feet, and stood in front of him, slightly between his now spread-apart knees. He was enough taller than her that she was almost looking at him straight on, even though he was still sitting.

His face, that kind, handsome, weathered face that she loved so well, was serious as he regarded her from his cowboy's eyes.

"I asked you a question."

She flushed even more and dropped her eyes. Somehow, looking straight at him while they talked about this stuff was harder even than being bottom-up over his lap.

"I asked you a question, and you're gonna answer me, little girl. I guess I haven't been getting my point across. Maybe I can remedy that. Pull your jeans and panties down and lie back down."

His tone brooked no disobedience. Juliette could hardly believe it as, with hands that had developed a noticeable tremor, she unbuttoned and unzipped her tight jeans and wriggled them down to her knees. Then she pushed her lacy white briefs down. She noticed, almost with detachment, that she was very turned on, though sex wasn't what she wanted out of this situation. She could smell her own arousal, and hoped that Deacon couldn't.

"Good girl. Now back over my knee."

He guided her down into a different position, over just his left knee, with her legs trapped under his right leg, so that she felt even more securely held than before. The air felt cool on her exposed, sore bottom. She could picture it in her mind, bright red and upraised, presented to him. He started to smack her again, and she was astonished at how much more painful the slaps were on her bare skin. She wouldn't have thought her panties and worn-in jeans could provide as much protection as they evidently had.

He hadn't smacked her more than ten times before the tears that she had been able to hold off before started flowing freely, and she was squirming, fighting in earnest to get free. She'd pretended to struggle before, just for the thrill of feeling him restrain her, but she hadn't put all her strength into it because she hadn't really wanted to get away. Now she fought with everything she had, pushing with her hands against the floor and then the chair leg, kicking her legs as far as she was able and twisting in attempt to squirm away. He simply tightened his hold on her with his right leg and left arm and whaled away ever harder at her bare bottom.

"We can be here all night, as far as I'm concerned. I ain't letting up until I'm done. That might come faster if you tell me the other reason why you're in this position, and you convince me you're sorry for it and won't do it again."

"Okay!" she eventually sobbed. "I was rude, okay! I was rude to Rayna and I was rude to you and I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Ow! Please stop, Deacon, it hurts and I can't take it anymore!"

She could though, and she had to, because though he decreased the force behind his spanks, he spanked her for another minute before he let up. She was crying wordlessly by then, no longer even fighting, just sobbing as she took her punishment. She didn't even notice at first that the barrage had let up, that he was now gently rubbing circles on her heaving back, that the hand that had restrained her waist was now supporting her and keeping her from sliding to the floor.

After a moment Juliette got her sobbing under control, though she was still leaking at the eyes, and she pushed herself up, meaning to step away from him and regain her composure. Deacon wouldn't allow it, pulling her into a hug, settling her on his knee so that only her thighs touched his jeans and her poor tender bottom just hung there in the air. He pulled her wet face into his shoulder.

"You're okay" he murmured softly. "We're okay, huh? It's all gonna be okay."

She smiled shakily up at him. "Deacon, thank you. That was. . . that was – well, something I didn't know I needed." She felt safe being held there in his arms. She was still aroused, though, and wondered if she should offer again to have sex with him. Part of her really, really wanted to – her jeans and panties were still down and her sopping pussy seemed to be convinced that all that spanking had been foreplay, though her head knew different – but that would be the wrong ending to what had just happened, and not just because she would never be able to explain it to Sean. Still, she felt like she owed Deacon something. She swiped under her eyes, and tried for that old sexual confidence, falling short. "Do we- Should we –?" She gestured at her bare bottom half.

Deacon's old sexy, playful smile came back, no authority figure now. His hand probed gently between her legs, feeling the wetness there. "Much as I'd like to, I know that this -" he pulled his glistening fingers out if her, touching them to the soft undercurve of her own upper lip "-isn't for me anymore. Sean Butler's a good guy. I've met him more than once and I like him. He could be something really good for you if you let him."

Relief edged out disappointment, by the thinnest of margins. "Yeah, he really is. I like him, Deacon. Might even love him." She stood and stepped back from him to wpull her panties and jeans up, wincing as the denim scraped over her bottom. "I'm so scared I'm gonna screw it up. What if he finds out who I really am?"

"There ain't no guarantees in life, Jules. You do your best, and hope it's enough. But for the record, I think who you really are is someone pretty special."

"Deacon, I wish things could've worked out for us. I wish was more like Rayna, someone you could love."

"Sweetheart, you are someone I could love. I do love you, though not the way you mean. But the thing is, I gave my heart away once, and it ain't mine to give away again 'til I get it back,"

"You gave it to Rayna." It wasn't a question.

"Yeah, I gave it to Rayna. She saved my life, you know. She hadn't forced me into rehab 15 years ago I'd be dead."

"Then I guess I kinda love her too." Juliette said dryly. The damn duet. "You think I should call her? Apologize?"

He glanced at his watch. "Give it a little time. I'd be surprised if she doesn't call you. You just be nice when she does."

"I will. Hey, Deacon – I hope I won't need it, but . . ."

"Anytime you need me, darlin'" He held up his right hand and looked it over, shaking it as if it hurt. "Though hopefully not again tonight – I think my hand is swelling up. Remind me never to beat you before I have to play guitar."

Juliette laughed, a full, real laugh, this time. "You got a deal. So you want to finish this song? I think we really got something here."

After he'd left she called Sean and made a date for the next evening. Then, hardly believing that she, Juliette Barnes, was home alone and horny on a Friday night, she used her vibrator to ease the itch she'd had since Deacon had warmed her bottom for her. She fantasized uneasily about a mystery spanker the whole time, and even as she came she couldn't be sure whether it was Deacon or Sean she was thinking about. Then she showered and had the best night's sleep she could ever remember having, and when the doorbell rang the next morning and she opened it to Rayna James on her doorstep, she thought about Deacon and did her best to be polite.


End file.
